It's a Girl Thing (24 page)

“Are you sure? Well, okay, but this is only the gossip I heard . . . ,” begins Fleur. “It was on Thursday night, apparently the girls from Catwalk and Jimi, Aaron and Naz from Lost Messiah were all messing about rehearsing in the drama studio.”

“And?” I say, my bottom lip wobbling.

“And what? Oh, God, Ronnie! Do you really wanna know? Okay, he walked her home and they had a big snog on Panama's garden path, apparently her mum and dad were at the supermarket, so there was no one in. So she invited him into her kitchen for a drink and they had an even bigger snog there and—”

“I DON'T WANT TO KNOW THIS!” I shout, throwing my face down in Fleur's duvet.

“Precisely,” Fleur says, rubbing my arm. “Besides, Ron, I was looking closely at Jimi the other day, and I was thinking, have you ever noticed that stupid face he pulls when he's skate-boarding? He's borderline circus freak, if you ask me. And he's got weird floppy lips. He's probably a really slobbery kisser.”

I sit up, placing my finger to her mouth.

“Fleur. Don't say too much. Cos me and Jimi
are
going to get together someday and I don't want there to be bad feelings between me and you.”

I'm only half-joking.

Claude and Fleur gaze at me pitifully, dressed in my di sheveled clothes.

“Okay,” agrees Fleur, but as I reach down to change the CD, I can see her swirling her finger around her ear, mouthing to Claude, “She's gone mad! Mad, I tell you!!”

“Actually,” pipes up Ainsley Hammond, who's been listening silently to all of this from his seat on Fleur's futon, “I wouldn't rule that out either.”

“Really?” I say. Ainsley can certainly attend more LBD meetings if he's going to speak such complete sense. Plus, he wears better makeup than any of us girls.

“Pah, I give them a week together. Two weeks, max,” continues our pale and interesting friend. “Jimi will
never
put up with Panama. He's a cool lad, Jimi. Y'know, really funny? And really sharp too. He'll soon wake up to the fact he's with Blackwell's biggest airhead.”

“Cheers, Ainsley,” I say. Who'd have guessed that someone dressed like the Grim Reaper would bring me the weekend's first slice of happiness?

“Anyway, Mr. Hammond,” says Claude. “You promised you had something cool to tell us. Come on, spill it . . .”

“Oh, of course. I nearly forgot,” tuts Ainsley, delving into his black rubber rucksack, which is covered in crucifixes drawn in correction fluid and silver studs, pulling out a cassette tape. “This is hilarious,” he says.

“What is it?” the LBD chorus.

“Well, ladies, I had the pleasure of being in the vicinity of the drama studio on Saturday when Catwalk were rehearsing. What a joy that was.”

“They were perfecting their five-part harmony,” I say glumly, recalling Panama's visit.

“Er . . . no, they weren't.” Ainsley smirks. “That's what I wanted to tell you. I think they've given up on that.”

Ainsley pops the tape into Fleur's stereo and presses PLAY. Immediately the room fills with a curious wailing noise.

“Runnnnning to your looooooove . . . ,” screeches what appears to be several voices, clashing and straining horribly in vastly different keys. This has to be the worst singing in the world ever. It sounds like a fire at a zoo.

“Turn it down!” says Claude, wincing.

“Hey! These people sound in pain. Who is that?!” says Fleur, covering her ears.

“Love! Love looooooove!” groans a voice on the tape, breaking into a coughing fit. Another female voice tries to hit a high C, merely dissolving into a morbid off-key caterwaul.

Ainsley presses STOP.

“It's Catwalk,” he says, beaming.

“What? I don't understand.” Claude frowns. “They're really good singers.”

“No, Claude, they're really good
mimers.
As far as I can gather, for the last year Catwalk've just been lip-synching to a tape of their voices put through one of those voice-enhancing machines. This tape is of them singing ‘Running to Your Love,' er, live.” Ainsley is as smug as smug can be now. “And I took the liberty of taping them in their raw, natural form.”

“So Catwalk can't actually sing at all?” I repeat, beginning to really chuckle.

“Mmmm, well,” says Ainsley, pressing PLAY, “let's have another listen, shall we?”

“LOOOOOOOOVE, running to your lurrrrrve!!!” groans what sounds like Derren from Catwalk with one of his vital organs trapped in a combine harvester.

“Er, no,” confirms Ainsley. “They just open and shut their mouths in time to a tape. Catwalk are a big bunch of frauds. How funny is that?”

Claude and Fleur are grinning like maniacs as we rewind the tape time and time again for yet another play, relishing every second of Catwalk's awfulness. And at this point it's unsaid between us girls, but we know that if we ever got the chance, we could have a lot of fun with this piece of information.

A lot of fun indeed.

 

 

“Hey, anyway,” says Claude eventually, drying her eyes, “I better bring you up to speed about my Friday meeting with McGraw, Guinevere and Foxton.”

“Oh, sorry, Claude, I forgot to ask. How is McGraw?” I say.

“He's sort of . . . depressed,” answers Claude, a corner of her mouth slightly turning up. “He's got his
concerns,
shall we say, about Blackwell Live.”

“Ahh,” I say. “What specifically?”

“Specifically,” says Claude, picking up a sheet of paper and putting on her reading glasses. “Specifically: Well, did you know Christy Sullivan keeps getting mobbed by Year Seven girls every time he attempts to move between lessons? They keep trying to rip his clothes and kiss him. Poor Christy is having to hide in the library at breaktimes now just for safety. So McGraw reckons we need some sort of security on the day—”

“Security?” I gasp. “We can't afford that!”

“Mmm. But we might have to find the money. Especially as McGraw is now positive that Killa Blow and the EZ Life Syndicate are some sort of urban street gang who carry guns and shoot people.”

“But they're not!” I argue. “They're really sweet.”

“Don't tell
me
that. He also reckons that Ainsley's band, Death Knell, are a cult of Satan worshipers who need to be
closely monitored.
”

“He's the one that needs his brain examined,” mutters Ainsley.

“That may be,” sighs Claude. “But sadly he's the headmaster and he's in charge of Blackwell School. Oh, and don't even ask what he thinks about Liam Gelding being involved.”

“Not a happy man?” I venture.

“No, in fact, he started clutching his forehead and saying unkind stuff about ‘the lunatics taking over the asylum' before announcing that we definitely needed security to stop ‘that prize chump' trying to get up on the school roof again.”

“He only did it once,” moans Fleur. “When is McGraw going to forget about that?!”

“Never,” says Claude. “Mrs. Guinevere even snapped at him to shut up at this point.”

Thank heavens for Mrs. Guinevere, she has been like a guardian angel to Blackwell Live over the last week. She's been only too ready to drive us to places, or fight in our corner whenever McGraw or the caretaker, Mr. Gowan, start moaning about us. She even gave up her lunch hour loads of times to sell tickets, which is more than can be said for almost every other teacher. What a woman!

Saying that, Mr. Foxton has been more than a little useful to have around too. It turns out he actually played in rock bands when he was at teacher-training college. No one famous, of course. But he knows quite a lot about sorting out gigs and instruments and how much rehearsal musicians need to do, all that sort of thing. He's quite cool for a grown-up, really.

“So does McGraw actually like any of the Blackwell Live bands?” I ask.

“Hmmm,” replies Claude. “Take an educated guess.”

“Catwalk?” I say, rolling my eyes.

“And the Blackwell bellringers, don't forget.” Fleur sniggers. “He lurrrrrrves the Blackwell bellringers.”

“How did you guess?” Claude laughs. “Oh, yeah, and McGraw's other concern is that we've sold too many tickets. Apparently 1,220 is far too many already, and a riot is bound to break out.”

“It does seem a lot.” I gulp.

“Mmm, I know . . . he could have a point,” Claude concedes. “But, Ronnie, people keep buying them! They just keep wanting more and more every single breaktime. We can't say no, can we?”

Claude looks to my lips, hoping for a pearl of wisdom.

I don't know what to say. It seems to me that our only problem is Blackwell Live is
too popular.
It's grown bigger than we even fantasized, and then some. It's becoming a pretty scary responsibility. But doesn't my mum always say that anything that's worth doing always involves taking a bit of a risk, and risks are scary, aren't they? So that's what I tell Claude.

“I think the LBD can either be frightened of Blackwell Live and how it's turning out . . . or we can move with it and expand,” I say, sounding a lot more confident than I am. I'm more than a little bit freaked out by what awaits us in under six days' time, even if I am proud of our “problem.”

 

 

It's 10:30 P.M. as I slip sheepishly through the main doors of the Fantastic Voyage. Dad is behind the bar, polishing a pint glass, staring into space, while Old Bert, the toothless regular, pours forth his tedious opinion on the state of the British monarchy.

“Dad,” I begin.

“Hello, Ronnie!” Dad smiles, running his hand over my hair. “Are you okay, pet lamb? I've been trying to speak to you since Friday—”

“I know, I'm really sorry, Dad—”

“It's okay. Don't worry. We're all a bit mixed up at the minute,” Dad says kindly. And in an instant we're friends again.

“I know, Dad. I'm just a bit . . . well, you know . . . ,” I say.

I love the way that with your family, sometimes you don't have to say anything, they just understand what you mean.

“But anyway, I've been thinking, Dad. About what you said the other night . . . y'know, about your music industry mates?”

Dad's face brightens up.

“I'd really like you to help me, Dad, er, I mean if you still want to, that is? Will you help, Dad?!” I ask.

Dad's sandy sideburns bristle with delight. He puts a pint glass under the lager pump and then begins pouring me a celebratory Diet Coke.

“Of course I will, Veronica. In fact, it would be an honor,” he says, plonking our drinks before us and pulling a pen from behind his ear.

“Now, brains, where shall we start?”

It felt pretty good having Dad back on my side.

Isn't it weird the way that, when you're not speaking to your parents, it just hangs over your head like a drizzly gray cloud? How can silence be so negative? Even when you're laughing and messing about with your friends, there's always something in the back of your mind about life that's not quite right. And even when you reckon you don't give a hoot what they think about something, well, you do really. Even hardened parent tormentors like Fleur Swan, who spends most of her life either sulking with her folks or being blanked by them . . . well, deep down even Fleur quite likes Paddy being proud of her.

“This is absolutely one of the most impressive things I've ever seen a group of kids set their minds to,” enthused Paddy on Monday night as the LBD perched around Fleur's dining table. Our mobile phones were bleeping constantly with discussions of this coming Saturday's plans. We also had to chat about all the fab suggestions that my dad had made about “running orders” and how to arrange the festival site.

“Cheers, Father.” Fleur smiled, blushing a touch as her mum, Saskia, ruffled the top of her daughter's honey-blond hair. “Get off, Mum!”

“No, honestly,” continued Paddy, who in fairness had been just picked up by Saskia from his golf club, where he had been “socializing in the bar” since 4:00 P.M. “I mean, when you told me that you wanted to spend my cash on a day of hippy-hoppy-hip music and all that
bang bang bang
stuff you play upstairs, well, okay, ladies, I'll admit, I thought you had a screw loose, but now—”

“Don't spoil it, darling.” Saskia grimaced. “You were on a roll there.”

“It's hip-hop music, Dad.” Fleur giggled, quite clearly bristling with pride that Paddy had publicly cracked, admitting she was a brilliant daughter. “Thank you anyway, we'll take that as a compliment.”

“But it
was
a compliment,” persisted Paddy as his wife led him to the den as a damage-limitation strategy.

“I love you girls!” shouted Paddy as he went. “You're a wonderful exshample of today's youth.”

“Now that
is
a first.” Fleur chuckled. “His special brain pills must have kicked in.”

“That's all my work, you know!” we could hear Paddy announcing proudly. “That dynamic, maverick, business-brained young lady . . . she takes after me!” Paddy was slurring.

“Yes, dear, she's a carbon copy of you,” agreed Saskia, slightly dryly. “In so many ways.”

But when I looked back at the LBD, I noticed that Claude looked a little sad. Even though every sheet of paper on the table indicated that things were going marvelously to plan.

“What's up, Claude?” I said.